MARS MEDDLES.
LOUISBURG, January 10, 1864.
MR. SILAS WARE:
DEAR SIR: In ten days I have to furnish twenty hands to work on
fortifications for the Confederate Government. I have tried every
plan I could devise to avoid doing so, but can put it off no longer.
I anticipated this long ago, and exchanged all the men I could
possibly spare for women, thinking that would relieve me, but it
makes no difference. They apportion the levy upon the number of
slaves. I shall have to furnish more pretty soon. The trouble is
to know who to send. I am afraid every devil of them will run away,
but have concluded that if I send Nimbus as a sort of headman of the
gang, he may be able to bring them through. He is a very faithful
fellow, with none of the fool-notions niggers sometimes get, I
think. In fact, he is too dull to have such notions. At the same
time he has a good deal of influence over the others. If you agree
with this idea, send him to me at once. Respectfully, P. DESMIT.
In accordance with this order Nimbus was sent on to have another
interview with his master. The latter's wishes were explained,
and he was asked if he could fulfil them. "Dunno," he answered
stolidly.
"Are you willing to try?"
"S'pect I hev ter, ennyhow, ef yer say so."
"Now, Nimbus, haven't I always been a good master to you?"
reproachfully.
No answer.
"Haven't I been kind to you always?"
"Yer made Marse War' gib me twenty licks once."
"Well, weren't you saucy, Nimbus? Wouldn't you have done that to
a nigger that called you a 'grand rascal' to your face?"
"S'pecs I would, Mahs'r."
"Of course you would. You know that very well. You've too much
sense to remember that against me now. Besides, if you are not
willing to do this I shall have to sell you South to keep you out
of the hands of the Yanks."
Mr, Desmit knew how to manage "niggers," and full well understood
the terrors of being "sold South." He saw his advantage in the
flush of apprehension which, before he had ceased speaking, made
the jetty face before him absolutely ashen with terror.
"Don't do dat, Marse Desmit, ef _you_ please! Don't do dat er
wid Nimbus! Mind now, Mahs'r, I'se got a wife an' babies."
"So you have, and I know you don't want to leave them."
"No more I don't, Mahs'r," earnestly.
"And you need not if you'll do as I want you to. See here, Nimbus,
if you'll do this I will promise that you and your family never
shall be separated, and I'll give you fifty dollars now and a
hundred dollars when you come back, if you'll just keep those other
fool-niggers from trying--mind' I say _trying_--to run away and
so getting shot. There's no such thing as getting to the Yankees,
and it would be a heap worse for them if they did, but you know
they _are_ such fools they might try it and get killed--which
would serve them right, only I should have to bear the loss."
"All right, Mahs'r, I do the best I can," said Nimbus.
"That's right," said the master.
"Here are fifty dollars," and he handed him a Confederate bill of
that denomination (gold value at that time, $3.21).
Mr. Desmit did not feel entirely satisfied when Nimbus and his
twenty fellow-servants went off upon the train to work for the
Confederacy. However, he had done all he could except to warn the
guards to be very careful, which he did not neglect to do.
Just forty days afterward a ragged, splashed and torn young ebony
Samson lifted the flap of a Federal officer's tent upon one of the
coast islands, stole silently in, and when he saw the officer's
eyes fixed upon him. asked,
"Want ary boy, Mahs'r?"
The tone, as well as the form of speech, showed a new-comer. The
officer knew that none of the colored men who had been upon the
island any length of time would have ventured into his presence
unannounced, or have made such an inquiry.
"Where did you come from?" he asked.
"Ober to der mainlan'," was the composed answer.
"How did you get here?"
"Come in a boat."
"Run away?"
"S'pose so."
"Where did you live?"
"Up de kentry--Horsford County."
"How did you come down here?" "Ben wukkin' on de bres'wuks."
"The dickens you have!"
"Yes, sah."
"How did you get a boat, then?"
"Jes' tuk it--dry so."
"Anybody with you?"
"No, Mahs'r."
"And you came across the Sound alone in an open boat?"
"Yes, Mahs'r; an' fru' de swamp widout any boat."
"I should say so," laughed the officer, glancing at his clothes.
"What did you come here for?"
"Jes'--_kase_."
"Didn't they tell you you'd be worse off with the Yankees than you
were with them?"
"Yes, sah."
"Didn't you believe them?"
"Dunno, sah."
"What do you want to do?"
"Anything."
"Fight the rebs?"
"Wal, I kin du it."
"What's your name?"
"Nimbus."
"Nimbus? Good name--ha! ha: what else?"
"Nuffin' else."
"Nothing else? What was your old master's name?"
"Desmit--Potem Desmit."
"Well, then, that's yours, ain't it--your surname--Nimbus Desmit?"
"Reckon not, Mahs'r."
"No? Why not?"
"Same reason his name ain't Nimbus, I s'pose."
"Well," said the officer, laughing, "there may be something in
that; but a soldier must have two names. Suppose I call you George
Nimbus?"
"Yer kin call me jes' what yer choose, sah; but my name's Nimbus
all the same. No Gawge Nimbus, nor ennything Nimbus, nor Nimbus
ennything--jes' Nimbus; so. Nigger got no use fer two names, nohow."
The officer, perceiving that it was useless to argue the matter
further, added his name to the muster-roll of a regiment, and
he was duly sworn into the service of the United States as George
Nimbus, of Company C, of the---Massachusetts Volunteer Infantry,
and was counted one of the quota which the town of Great Barringham,
in the valley of the Housatuck, was required to furnish to complete
the pending call for troops to put down rebellion. By virtue of
this fact, the said George Nimbus became entitled to the sum of
four hundred dollars bounty money offered by said town to such as
should give themselves to complete its quota of "the boys in blue,"
in addition to his pay and bounty from the Government. So, if it
forced on him a new name, the service of freedom was not altogether
without compensatory advantages.
Thus the slave Nimbus was transformed into the "contraband" George
Nimbus, and became not only a soldier of fortune, but also the
representative of a patriotic citizen of Great Barringham, who served
his country by proxy, in the person of said contraband, faithfully
and well until the end of the war, when the South fell--stricken
at last most fatally by the dark hands which she had manacled,
and overcome by their aid whose manhood she had refused to
acknowledge.